Stranded
by CuriousCaitx
Summary: Captain James Kirk and his First Officer Spock are kidnapped, finding themselves light years away from help and having to fight to escape an uninhabited planet and their captors. Kirk/Spock, a slow-building realization of their feelings amidst the chaos.


Chapter One

The _Enterprise _was docked on the planet Taros, picking up cargo from the Starbase for the neighboring Earth colonies in the galaxy, refueling, and having minor engine repairs done for the damage from the last mission they were on. The starship's crew had five days of shore leave, and they wasted no time in celebrating this.

"I am _so _drunk!" Captain James Kirk stumbled out of the bar with his friends and crewmates, laughing and gripping the outside wall for support. The night air was cool and felt good to breathe into his lungs after spending hours in a stuffy, crowded room.

Bones patted his shoulder and laughed, "That's what you get for tryin' to out-drink Scotty."

The Scotsman in question was just then coming out of the door with the _Enterprise_'s young navigator and helmsman, cackling wildly at something a grinning Sulu had said to him. The five of them stood in a little circle outside the bar, smiles plastered to their faces from a good night of fun and drinking. But someone was missing…

"Wh'rsSpock?" Jim asked suddenly, hoping the words came out semi-coherently.

"I am here, Captain." Jim jumped violently, almost falling over as he turned to see his First Officer behind him.

"Jesus! You're like a ninja!" He laughed and stepped back to include him in the circle. Spock had come with them at Jim's request, but hadn't had a drink at all, of course. A Vulcan can't risk the illogical state of drunkenness. In other words, he was no fun. But Jim liked having him there anyway.

"I do not see how your lack of observation of my presence suggests I am comparable to an ancient Japanese mercenary," he replied curiously. He stood perfectly still and upright as usual, his hands grasped behind his back. Jim tried to copy him his stance and failed miserably, awarding him with laughs from his friends and one raised swooping eyebrow.

He grinned at the Vulcan and assured him in slurred speech, "I don' _really _think you're a ninja, Spock. It's jus' a thing y'say when people sneak up on you." Jim began walking down the sidewalk carefully with a quick wave to the other four ("S'you guys tomorrow!"). The Captain and his First Officer had been assigned quarters three blocks from the others.

Spock fell in step with him. Well, as much as he could be in step with someone barely able to walk straight. "I did not intend to 'sneak up on' you, Captain."

Jim sighed, but couldn't help but still smile. Something in the sky caught his eye and he looked up, immediately regretting the decision as he suddenly stumbled forward and caught himself at the last second. His smile widened when he turned to see Spock's hand reaching between them, as if ready to catch him if he fell. "Don' want me t'fall on my face?"

"Of course not, Captain. It would be illogical to allow you to injure yourself if I could easily stop it," he told him matter-of-factly, putting his hands back down by his sides as they continued to walk.

"I was going t'say how nice th'moons look t'night," Jim struggled to say, unthinkingly gripping Spock's shoulder to steady himself as he looked up again.

Spock looked down at Jim's hand and then glanced upward at the sky, raising an eyebrow carefully. Everything he did was so _careful. _"There is only one moon orbiting Taros, Jim."

"Oh."

Jim found himself unexpectedly being pulled backwards. Before his mind could process what was happening, a woman flew out of the alleyway they had been passing, her dark brown hair sticking up wildly and her clothes torn in several places. Spock's hand around his bicep is what had moved Jim out of the way. It was unnaturally warm.

Jim shook his head, trying to make himself sober up as the woman spotted them and came at them with wide, scared eyes. "Please, help me! You have to help me!" Her eyes darted between him and Spock frantically.

Spock took a step toward her, letting go of Jim and leaving his arm feeling cold. "What is the situation?" he asked her, tone ridiculously professional as always.

"We got attacked by some guys – they're going to kill him—my boyfriend, you have to come with me now! Help me!" She gripped Jim's forearm, nails digging sharply through the cloth of his shirt and helping to clear his head.

"Lead the way," he commanded, unable to keep the excitement from his voice at the prospect of a heroic venture.

"Captain, we should inform someone—"

"No!" She cut off Spock violently and began to pull Jim to the alley. "There's no time for that, they're hurting him!"

Jim, who didn't need any more convincing, let the woman pull him into a run, trying to keep his feet stuck to the ground. "Come on, Spock!" he shouted over his shoulder, causing a stutter in his stride. Spock caught up with them easily; his face seemed to hint at worry to Jim. But he was probably imagining that.

"They're just around this corner, we have to hurry!"

The farther down the path they ran, the darker it became. The street had been quiet to begin with, but the only sounds became their heavy footfalls on concrete. Jim's mind still seemed sluggish, but the adrenaline pumping through his body aided in getting him in the state he needed to be in for a fight. He had already tugged his phaser from his belt, setting it to stun. A glance to his right saw that Spock had done the same. He knew any number of thugs would be no match for the two Starfleet officers. Unless they were well-armed… but no way any common criminals got their hands on good weaponry.

"Hurry, hurry!" The brunette urged as she disappeared down a path to the left.

"Wait!" Jim shouted, worried that she would get hurt in the seconds it took to catch up with her sprinting.

His concern melted away as he turned the corner.

Five men stood in a semi-circle in the darkened alley, phasers trained on the two as they came into sight. The woman had stopped in the center of the circle, turning slowly to face them with a slimy grin. The men were dressed in all black, most wearing heavy cloaks and draped with belts and holsters bearing weapons. They all looked infuriatingly smug.

"How nice of you to come to the rescue, Captain," the woman spoke, her face twisted unrecognizably from the terrified girl they'd been following moments before. Jim's heart pounded and he looked at Spock for some kind of plan, but the Vulcan's eyes were trained on their attackers.

"I can't resist a damsel in distress," he replied casually. If he seemed calm, maybe they wouldn't feel too confident. He and Spock could fire their phasers at them and duck back around the alley as they try to avoid being shot. Jim looked to his comrade again to try to convey this to him, but all he saw was his hope being crushed before his eyes.

"Spock—!" It was too late. Even though Spock heard the guy coming and lashed out, he wasn't able to stop him. A huge needle flashed in the moonlight before sinking into the skin on his neck, and he crumpled to the ground in a second. Jim shot his phaser wildly at the assailant and tried to step back and away, but only managed to trip over an abandoned bottle and crash to the ground. Maybe being drunk and trying to help people wasn't a good idea after all.

The bandits roared with laughter, the woman's laugh high-pitched and grating to his ears. She waltzed over to him as he scrambled backwards for his phaser that had been thrown from his hand several feet away. "Poor James Kirk," she said with a mocking pout. "I thought you were supposed to be a great hero, not a drunken idiot!"

"And I thought you were supposed to be a nice young woman in need of help, not a disgusting slut!" he shot back, his fingers finally finding his weapon.

She frowned and stomped on his hand, making him cry out and drop his last hope of fighting them. "Do it," she barked at someone behind him. Before he could even move, he felt a sharp prick in the side of his neck. The pain lasted only a second as consciousness left him.

* * *

When Jim came to, the first thing he thought about was how much it _hurt _to think. His head felt like someone was consistently taking a metal bat to his skull, and his neck and shoulder muscles were achingly tense from the pain. He went to reach up to grip his head as if he could ward off the beating it was taking, but he found that his hands were bound behind his back, both of which were being pressed up against something warm and hard.

"_Spock," _Jim rasped, his mouth and throat horribly dry. The solid form supporting him moved slightly, and he turned his head to see Spock trying to turn and look at him.

"Captain." His unusually rough voice suggested he was also suffering from a dry mouth.

Assured that he was fine (well, relatively), Jim began to take in their surroundings. They were outside and it was still night time, but it was significantly colder than before. Thick metal bars surrounded them on all sides, a small cage that barely fit the both of them and was only tall enough to sit up in. The darkness kept him from seeing far, but he could make out tall trees all around them and the soft glow of lights coming from a space shuttle some distance away. A small campfire burned a ways to their left, between them and the shuttle, and he guessed the huddled figure that sat next to it was the unlucky guy that got picked to keep an eye on them, as several other bodies were laying still under thick blankets asleep. Jim glanced up at the sky and sighed… and then his eyes narrowed suspiciously as the clouds rolled away.

"Spock… either I'm still drunk or we're not on Taros anymore."

Two moons hung above them, one significantly larger than the other and so bright that Jim could suddenly see the entire clearing they and their kidnappers were occupying.

Jim felt Spock copy his action, his head brushing briefly against the back of his own as he looked upward. "You are right, Jim. We must have been taken to a more covert location."

Jim cursed under his breath and tried to wiggle away to get a better look at things. And that's when he realized his hands were also bound to Spock's, whose fingers attempted to retract from his as soon he started moving. "Sorry," he said quickly, trying to ignore how good it had felt to have his cold hands touching Spock's overly warm ones.

"What now?" Jim asked rhetorically, exasperated.

Of course the Vulcan doesn't understand rhetorical. "I suggest we try to escape."

"Oh, you know, I hadn't thought of that. Good job, Spock." He huffed, and leaned forward to see if that would help ease the pressure still crushing his head. All it did was lose him the heat emanating from Spock's back and he quickly returned to his former position, not really caring how his friend felt about it at that moment.

"The female approaches," Spock informed him, his head turned to his right (Jim's left). He followed his gaze to the now lit area around the shuttle, where the girl from before walked casually from its opening on the side, which slowly fell to a close behind her. She didn't come over to them, but stopped at the camp where one of the men sat awake. He looked up at her and asked a question Jim could barely make out but thought was, "How long?"

Whatever the woman's reply was Jim couldn't hear, but he knew Spock could so he waited. The two bandits exchanged a few more words before the woman found her way to an empty spot where her own cot and blankets waited to be slept in.

"What did they say?" he asked in a whisper as soon as she had lain down and rolled over away from them.

"Apparently they are waiting here for their superior to retrieve them and us. She said it would be three days. She also mentioned her intent to gain much wealth from our capture."

"A ransom for _us _would be quite a haul," Jim admitted, and then frowned. "I guess no one knows we're gone yet."

"Indeed. Considering the symptoms, the tranquilizer they used seems to be a large dose of the same a medical doctor would use, suggesting we have been unconscious for several hours at most." Spock spoke in a way that gave away no panic or worry, but Jim could feel how tense his back muscles were. He let some of his weight fall on Spock for a second, thinking maybe to reassure him like a pat on the back or something, but his muscles only tightened further.

Jim looked around the bottom of their cage, seeing and feeling the short, pale grass beneath them. And then he realized something. "Those guys are _idiots!" _he told Spock, still quietly. He felt the tug that told him Spock had turned to look at him, and he could also almost feel the lifting of his eyebrow.

"Look," he said, nodding his head at the ground and then shaking his head. "There's no bottom to this thing. You could easily pick this up, couldn't you?" Jim had seen many times how very strong his Vulcan First Officer was.

"Affirmative, Captain," Spock agreed, but then gave a deliberate pull at their bonds. "Though, this makes it near impossible."

Jim twisted his wrist in the hard metal chains, hand once again accidentally brushing Spock's and him once again trying to pull away. "Couldn't you break these, too?" he asked, confused.

"That would risk injury to you."

"Do it."

"No."

"Spock, we have no other choice." Jim strained his neck to look at him, and then tried to make his voice harder as he said, "I'm commanding you to do it." Then softer, "Just try to be careful, alright?"

For a minute Jim thought Spock was refusing to even acknowledge him, but then he heard a short exhale. A sigh. "Brace yourself, Jim."

He felt Spock pull his hands as far apart as they would go, testing it out. The way they were tied together, the chains circled one hand and then criss-crossed around Jim's wrists before coming back to his other. He felt how tight the chains were around his wrists as Spock pulled, and winced as he realized what this meant.

"I'm sorry," he heard Spock say, very softly. Jim bit his lip.

_Snap!_ Blood trickled down Jim's chin as his teeth dug in to keep him from crying out. He felt the chains fall to the ground and knew they were broken, but the intense pain in his left wrist proved that they had not been the only things to break. Thankfully it seemed it had taken the brunt of the force and allowed his right one to come away with what felt like only a chance of bad bruising. Slowly, he brought his hands into his lap, no longer thinking about the pain in his head.

Spock was immediately trying to work his way in front of him, eyes trained darkly on Jim's hands. He reached forward to grasp them, but visibly hesitated. Jim met his gaze for a moment and suddenly Spock was gingerly holding his wrists, fingers prodding slightly where the chains had been.

"Your left wrist is broken," he said quietly, eyes downcast. Jim grinned, because he knew Spock was upset even if he didn't really show it.

"It doesn't even hurt," he lied. His wrist throbbed, hanging at a strange angle. It had swollen to twice its normal size in seconds. Spock was not buying his bullshit.

"We must make a splint for this," he said forcefully. His eyes swayed back and forth across the ground for a second before he reached across Jim and came back with part of a broken branch. Being so close to the trees, twigs littered the floor. "This will have to do for now."

Jim took deep breaths as he watched his friend carefully aline his wrist with the short stick and then rip off part of the over shirt of his blue uniform to wrap around his arm and secure the makeshift splint in place. It hurt like hell, but Jim didn't want Spock to see that. He closed his eyes until it was done.

"Captain…" Spock's voice was low. Jim opened his eyes to see dark, moonlit eyes gazing at him.

He let go of Jim's arm, letting him brace it against his torso as he moved to a crouch. He looked over at the camp, just then realizing the noise they had made breaking their bonds might have been noticed. The unusual stillness of the look-out told him that he had not heard, and probably was a poor choice to be the one to stay up and take watch. He was asleep.

With a sigh of relief, Jim inched away from Spock and nodded at him to lift their prison off of them. "Try to be as quiet as possible," he ordered, whispering as if to show him how quiet they needed to be. "We'll go for the shuttle and be out of here and home in no time." He let a grin slide onto his face despite the sharp stabs of pain bursting up his arm.

Spock gave an almost imperceptible nod and then reached up until his hands were firmly grasping the bars. He began to lift, leaves and grass and twigs rustling slightly as the cage left its place on one side. Despite his strength, Jim could tell Spock had to exert himself, meaning their cage must have been made out of some very heavy metal that their captors thought would easily hold them. _Well, we'll show them, won't we? _Jim thought with satisfaction.

In no time Spock had the cage lying on its side, having set it down very gently. They both looked at each other for a moment, Jim smiling brightly and Spock's mouth tightening in a way that Jim always thought meant he was trying _not _to smile.

They were free.

Jim motioned (with his good hand) for Spock to follow him, falling into a soft trot that felt good to his cramped legs. They skirted around the camp, sure to make no noise and ruin the whole thing. The shuttle sat gleaming at the center of the clearing, moonlight bouncing gleefully off its surface. When they finally reached it, Jim searched for the switch to open the door as Spock kept an eye behind them.

He found the switch and with a soft hiss the door slid open and they were inside.

"They must have stolen this," Jim accused, observing how nice and clean the shuttle was. It was small, only for close interplanetary travel, but could fit up to ten passengers. He made his way to the console, dropping quickly into the pilot's chair and hitting the switch to close the door back up. "This is way too awesome looking for that gang of idiots to have gotten legitimately."

"Captain, we should hurry. As soon as the engines start, our kidnappers will hear our escape." Spock had taken the seat next to him, quietly observing the vessel and glancing out of the front window.

"No worries, Spock. We'll be out of here before they can even rub two of their tiny brain cells together and figure out what's happening," he informed him happily, immediately flipping the necessary switches to start the engine and prepare for takeoff.

"Listen to this baby's purr!" Jim exclaimed as the engines roared to life, emitting a low hum.

Suddenly Spock was on his feet. "Captain, wait!"

"We have to go now, Spock! Sit down!" He reached for the lever that would get them in the air. Spock's hand closed over his, the sudden warmth causing him to snatch it away in surprise. "What are you doing?"

"Captain, there's no fuel in this ship. We would not make it out of the atmosphere." He grabbed Jim's good arm and pulled him out of his chair, quickly opening the hatch back up and practically dragging him outside. "We must run."

Jim followed Spock as he ran directly to the trees, every step a terrible jolt to his wrist. He didn't chance looking behind him, but he heard sounds of the bandits waking ("Hey!" "What's going on?" "Stop!"). Just as they reached the edge of the forest, phaser rounds started flashing past them and they had no choice but to push themselves harder. Sweat poured down Jim's face as he clutched his arm against his chest and followed Spock into the darkness.

* * *

**Thanks for reading! **

**Pretty please review and let me know if this was horrible and I should just stop now, or if I should keep going!  
**


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